Of You I Know So Much

December 11, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is friendship.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A friendship poem about what makes a friend so precious:

Of you I know so much, and yet

Nothing that I know

Encompasses just who you are

Or explicates your glow.

For you I would do anything,

As you would do for me.

Knowing this is breathing life:

Intense, serene, and free.

No one else so touched my soul

Deep in, where none can see.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/ofyou.html. For more friendship poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

12/10: Why Did You Change

12/11: Of You I Know So Much

Why Did You Change

December 10, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is friendship.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A poem questioning why a friendship has turned sour:

Why did you change? What did I do?

We were like brothers, and now

Your face is a wall without windows, while you

Curse every claim you allow.

I don't understand what undid the sweet bond

That for years yielded nothing but joy.

I am who I was, and yet you respond

With words either cutting or coy.

Perhaps there's no why when some untoward wind

Whips away what one holds to one’s heart.

Though bitter it be to leave loved ones behind,

One must learn when it’s past time to part.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/whydi2.html. For more friendship poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/friendshippoems.html .

This week’s theme: Friendship

12/10: Why Did You Change

Clearly There Were Jews and There Were Jews

December 9, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2^nd and will end at sundown on December 9^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A Chanukah poem about how the attempt by the Syrian King Antiochus IV to persecute the Jews ironically led to the miracle that helped sustain Judaism:

Clearly there were Jews and there were Jews --

Hellenized, not Hellenized, not caring.

Assimilation let one pick and choose,

Not wedded to the faith that one was wearing.

Until a king sought Judaism's end,

Kindling a flame that burned inside,

A miracle that would the faith defend --

Here for us, a faith that else had died.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/clearl.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Hanukkah

12/3: Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart

12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing

12/5: Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights

12/6: Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness

12/7: Chanukah Itself’s the Miracle

12/8: Before Chaos, There Was Perfect Light

12/9: Clearly There Were Jews and There Were Jews

Before Chaos, There Was Perfect Light

December 8, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2^nd and will end at sundown on December 9^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A Hanukkah poem about the eternal nature of light:

Before chaos, there was perfect light;

Only light, there was no hint of darkness.

Nor was this moment ever in the past,

Nor can it ever be. Outside time

It simply is. Perfect. Eternal. Pure

Existence. What we, at every moment, are.

Still, we must move downriver. We are

Each, in the end, prepared to turn to pure

Terror at the raging lip of time.

How can we vanish, yet live on in the past?

Life only seems to flow towards darkness:

Open those seams, and you see only light.

Red in the west heralds motion's darkness,

Revealing glories millennia past.

As the Earth spins, so we spin through time;

In gravity's grip, no circle is pure,

No being is Being, yet by being we are

Eternal, forever an instant of light.

Given: that light can only be; that light,

As such, cannot not be; that in time lights are,

But then are not; that nonetheless they are pure

Rays racing far beyond the lips of time,

Infinite, irrevocable; that the past

Exists forever, as such; that darkness

Limits only one's perception of light.

Most experts claim the night is clothed in darkness;

Instinctively, they view the past as past.

Do not assume that what you see in time

Is what appears in visions cold and pure.

Eternal isn't only forever. We are

Living eternally now, fragments of pure

Light--the track, the train, the farmhouse time

Erased. No thing is ever nothing--not the past,

Not loved ones lost, not what we know as darkness.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chaos.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Hanukkah

12/3: Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart

12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing

12/5: Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights

12/6: Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness

12/7: Chanukah Itself’s the Miracle

12/8: Before Chaos, There Was Perfect Light

Chanukah Itself's the Miracle

December 7, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2^nd and will end at sundown on December 9^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A Chanukah poem about the miracle of keeping Chanukah alive for millennia of exile:

Chanukah itself's the miracle:

How could we remember all those years,

Aliens lost upon a shoreless sea,

Not only scattered--battered, shattered, tattered,

Unwelcome guests of hosts unmerciful,

Knowing well the wellsprings of our tears,

A life devoured by identity

Holding on to legacies that mattered?

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanuk.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Hanukkah

12/3: Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart

12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing

12/5: Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights

12/6: Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness

12/7: Chanukah Itself’s the Miracle

Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness

December 6, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2^nd and will end at sundown on December 9^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A Hanukkah poem about life as a gift:

Bees swarm along the fragile edge of darkness.

Open wounds attract blood-hungry flies.

Near my heart lie savage little souls

Neatly arrayed to feast upon my life.

In eight days God will be through with miracles.

Even so, life is a gift of love.

So how does one enjoy this gift of love,

Even as one moves from light to darkness?

There is no moment free of miracles,

However swift and deep one's passion flies.

Glory is the dancing quark of life,

Alight with love and lust in all our souls.

Born of the cataclysm, our burgeoning souls

Race towards infinity, love

Infinite, lust infinite, life

Eternal as light billowing into darkness.

Little do we see how far it flies

As we spin through Earth-bound miracles.

Nor can we comprehend these miracles.

Darkness is the center of our souls,

Like still black water in the moonlight. Love

Is of this emptiness; unburdened, it flies

Swiftly in widening circles, skimming the darkness,

A motion outward at the heart of life.

More cry than ocean, more wish than star, life

Is the lyric of an explosion of miracles.

Dream and dung, it is the gospel of darkness;

In a petrie dish, a canticle of souls.

Earth is the stage for a concert of passionate love:

Lettuces and roses, gulls and flies.

Let flies and fish and redwoods sing of life

Equally, of love and miracles;

Nor shall our souls deny their birth in darkness.

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/bees.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Hanukkah

12/3: Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart

12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing

12/5: Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights

12/6: Bees Swarm Along the Fragile Edge of Darkness

Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights

December 5, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is Hanukkah, which began at sundown on December 2^nd and will end at sundown on December 9^th.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com .

A Hanukkah poem for children about the meaning of the Hanukkah candles:

Time to light the Hanukkah lights,

Eight candles in a row,

One by one for eight whole nights –

Watch them dance and glow!

Time to light the Hanukkah lights

Eight nights in a row,

Remembering that one day’s oil

Burned eight nights long ago!

Time to light the Hanukkah lights,

To watch them dance and play,

Dancing, dancing eight whole nights –

A happy holiday!

© by Nicholas Gordon

If you enjoyed this poem, please like, comment on, or share it so that it might be seen and enjoyed by others. To see this poem on my site, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/timeto.html. For more Hanukkah poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/chanukahpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Hanukkah

12/3: Happiness Comes Wholly from the Heart

12/4: Before You Light the Candles, Say the Blessing

12/5: Time to Light the Hanukkah Lights